If the Religious Right gets
its way,
churches will be able to legally endorse
candidates and lend support to campaigns
just in time for November's elections.

Updated September 20, 2004 and September
29, 2004 by the Yurica Report with facts detailing why the GOP's
House leadership is violating law. See the Editor's
Note below.

In a move designed to crush all opposition, House Majority
Leader Tom Delay and House Speaker Dennis Hastert have joined
with Rep. Walter Jones to attach the Houses of Worship Free Speech
Restoration Act (Jones bill/HR
235) to the Fisk Tax Bill FSC-ETI (It was to have been
attached to the Jobs Creation Act H.R.
4520). If passed, the Jones bill would go far towards
eroding the wall of separation between the institutions of religion
and government by reversing IRS tax laws that prohibit houses
of worship from engaging in partisan politicking.

The American Jobs Creation Act already passed the House and
Senate and is in conference committee. By inserting the Jones
legislation into this bill during conference committee, Delay
and Jones ensure that the House and Senate will never get a chance
to vote on the Jones bill, which the House has defeated in various
forms twice before.

Shortly before the Congress moved into its August Recess,
Rep. Jones, according to The Hill newspaper, delivered a letter
to the Speaker signed by 131 lawmakers stating that the House
"lost an ideal opportunity" to change IRS policy in
regard to the ability of houses of worship to endorse partisan
candidates when the House passed the tax reform bill on June
17. In that bill, The Interfaith Alliance along with nearly two
dozen religious denominations was successful in leading a bipartisan
effort to defeat the so-called "Safe Harbors Act,"
a variation of the Jones bill that would have allowed houses
of worship to endorse political candidates up to three times
without losing their tax-exempt status. Capitol Hill sources
say that the letter delivered by Jones to Speaker Hastert is
a clear pressure tactic reminding the Speaker that many Republican
votes for the larger tax reform bill are in jeopardy if the Jones
legislation is not included in the bill.

On September 9, action alerts sprang up on Religious-Right
websites instructing their members to call Hastert and Delay
stating,

"UPDATE: WE NEED YOU TO MAKE CALLS TODAY! The hope of
returning free speech to our pastors is closer than ever. There
is a solid possibility of inserting HR235, the Houses of Worship
Free Speech Restoration Act, into the American Jobs Creation
Act of 2004 that is currently in conference committee on Capitol
Hill."

For those of us who believe in the separation of Church and
State, Contact House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas and
thank him for his past work in preventing this dangerous and
landscape-altering legislation from becoming reality. Please
ask Chairman Thomas to prevent the hijacking of the Jobs Creation
Act by Walter Jones and his Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration
Act. His office can be reached by calling 202-225-3625.

Telephone calls are the only communication that will make
an impact at this point. With the strong network of right-wing
organizations making calls, please immediately let every national
organization you are affiliated with know about this.

In addition, below are the Senators who have been designated
as conferees by their party. If they represent you,
please call them and tell them to oppose the insertion of H.R.
235 in the Jobs Creation Act. These calls are essential.

[Yurica Report editor's note:We have previously
written of a similar situation in 2003, where highhanded
and disreputable tactics were used in the House and Senate to
pass the Medicare Drug law when portions of the law were inserted,
against the rules, into the bill without having been passed by
both houses of Congress. The situation presently being
perpetrated is even worse inasmuch as the Jones' bill was defeated
by vote. We cited the following Senate Rule and the pertinent
Supreme Court decisions which clearly reveal the acts of the
congressional GOP leadership were illegal:

According to Senate Rule XXVIII, Section 2,

Conferees shall not insert in their report matter not
committed to them by either House, nor shall they strike from
the bill matter agreed to by both Houses. If new matter is inserted
in the report, or if matter which was agreed to by both Houses
is stricken from the bill, a point of order may be made against
the report 

The Supreme Court in INS
v. Chadha 462 U.S. 919 (1983) commented upon an earlier
case, the 1892 case of Field
v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649 (1892),which the Court said resolved
any question that an act does not become a law
of the United States if it had not in fact been passed by Congress.
(Emphasis ours.) The Court wrote:

"a bill signed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives
and by the President of the Senate, presented to and approved
by the President of the United States, and delivered by the latter
to the Secretary of State, as an act passed by Congress, does
not become a law of the United States if it had not in fact been
passed by Congress. . . .

". . . We recognize, on one hand, the duty of this court,
from the performance of which it may not shrink, to give full
effect to the provisions of the Constitution relating to the
enactment of laws that are to operate wherever the authority
and jurisdiction of the United States extend. On the other hand,
we cannot be unmindful of the consequences that must result if
this court should feel obliged, in fidelity to the Constitution,
to declare that an enrolled bill, on which depend public and
private interests of vast magnitude, and which has been . . .
deposited in the public archives, as an act of Congress, . .
. did not become a law." Id., at 669-670 (emphasis in original).